Pauper has long been a pet format of many Magic: the Gathering online players, but over the past few years, Pauper has become a widely played format in Paper Magic, as well! Many staples in the Pauper format, despite only being commons, have risen to several dollars a copy. Foil copies of those cards have skyrocketed due to demand, as well. Of course, like any Legacy format, Pauper still has decks that lie around the fringes of the format, ready to break out. In today’s Pauper Finance 101 article, we take at a deck flying under the radar, but already showing signs of player investment: RUG Defenders!

RUG Defenders essentially is a deck based around Defenders, with the win condition essentially being creating enough mana to kill a player in one shot with Kaervek’s Torch or Rolling Thunder. What’s particularly interesting is that this deck is full of cards that see play in other Pauper decks and even other formats, including EDH. Let’s take a look at the decklist, and break down the financial impacts of each key card in this fairly rogue deck.

For finance purposes, this entire deck can be built for a little under $20 (as of 2/17/2019). That includes a playset of the pauper staple Mulldrifter, which accounts for about 25% of that. Also, every version of this deck appears to play four copies of Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, Stinging Barrier, and Wall of Roots . Every RUG Defenders deck also appears to play two copies of Wall of Tanglecord. These are the cards we’ll focus on first, since they form a major part of the deck’s core.

Axebane Guardian is actually a very powerful common, so powerful that buylists often will pay $0.05 cash a copy. While a 0/3 for 3 mana isn’t exciting, the Guardian has an ability to add X mana to your mana pool in any combination of colors where X is the number of Defenders you control! This creature allows you to ramp a lot of mana quickly, making it a major key to this deck. In addition to this deck, a full playset (four copies) of Axebane Guardian also sees play in another Pauper deck: Defenders Combo.

The Axebane Guardian also sees significant play in EDH / Commander, particularly in Arcades, the Strategist (at one time a super hot deck) and Doran, the Siege Tower Defender decks. So, there is demand from at least two player bases, however niche they may be.

Foil copies of Axebane Guardian once hit $8 a piece, but in Feburary 2019, the price has dropped below $4, with a TCGPlayer Market Price under $3. While many Pauper cards tend to be interesting investment in foil, at the moment, Axebane Guardian is not. We’re looking for a steady rise, not a steady decline, with foil card investments. So, if you want to invest in a playset or two of Axebane Guardian, the nonfoil is actually a lot safer.

Overgrown Battlement was actually a very strong card during its Standard days. It does much the same thing as Axebane Guardian, except that it only produces Green mana. But, it’s a 0/4 for 2 mana, making it a bit more resilient, especially against burn cards like Lightning Bolt - although Flame Slash still takes it down. The Battlement also sees play in the aforementioned Defenders Combo deck. It also sees play in the same EDH decks as Axebane Guardian.

Unlike Axebane Guardian, which only has one printing in Return to Ravnica, Overgrown Battlement gained a second printing in Iconic Masters. In fact, the nonfoil of Overgrown Battlement in Iconic Masters is beginning to outpace the Rise of the Eldrazi card in price. The foil has been holding steady at around a dollar, although they sell for closer to $2 each on eBay. The Rise of the Eldrazi foil is considerably more at a market price of a little over $2. But in 2018, this foil spiked ot over $13.

Which version of Overgrown Battlement is the best buy? Despite the Iconic Masters printing being at uncommon, which makes it slightly rarer as a nonfoil, there are over 50 sellers of the Iconic Masters foil on TCGPlayer. There are fewer than 30 sellers of the Rise of the Eldrazi foil, and some of those are Heavily Played. It won’t take many foil playsets of Overgrown Battlement to cause some serious increase in the price. There is clearly demand for this card, though.

Stinging Barrier is a card that’s unique to the RUG Defenders deck in Pauper. It also sees little to no play in EDH. So, why is a 4-mana 0/4 Defender so good in this deck? Stinging Barrier has a tap ability for a single Blue mana to deal 1 damage to target creature or player. That’s not an insignificant ability in a Defender deck.

What makes this card interesting is that it’s from Mercadian Masques. Thus, there is a foil version that’s actually a bit rare. While there is some interest in the foil at $.50, no one’s exactly tripping over themselves to upgrade their playsets. I wouldn’t invest in this card, although if the RUG Defenders deck starts posting results, the foils could jump very quickly!

Wall of Roots is particularly interesting because it’s a card that’s seen tons of competitive play in the past, especially in Modern Birthing Pod decks. Iconic Masters turned this $1 common into a $0.25 card in a hurry, though. But, Wall of Roots is currently set up for a resurgence in Modern thanks to Prime Speaker “Birthing Pod” Vannifar.

While the Wall of Roots is only a one-of in Modern and doesn’t really see any other competitive Pauper play, foils are a nice financial target. The particularly rare Timeshifted foil is $11+ but the Iconic Masters foil is a mere $1.25, with many copies going for far less. The demand hasn’t really been there, but they are moving up in price on eBay. You don’t have to go deep on this card, and a playset is still pretty cheap on TCGPlayer (as of 2/17/19)

Other Interesting Creatures in the Deck

Mulldrifter is a big staple in many Pauper decks, including Rainbow Tron, Blue-Black Control, and others. It’s been printed too many times in nonfoil to be much more than $1, but it only has three foil printings. The original Lorwyn foil printing is pretty rare, especially in better than lightly-played condition. The Modern Masters and Modern Masters 2015 foils are much more common, but the original Modern Masters foil has remained fairly steady around $3.50 a piece. It’s a card to watch going forward, although it hasn’t been seeing as steady play in Pauper as it has in the past. Mulldrifter is in a ton of EDH decks, though, over 18000+ according to EDHREC. That fact alone makes the foil a decent investment.

Oona’s Gatewarden isn’t a must in this deck, but being a 2/1 flyer with wither makes her at least interesting. Faerie tribal decks have played her in the past and she only has one printing in Shadowmoor. The foil is interesting at $1, although she doesn’t see much other play outside of the odd Oona, Queen of the Fae EDH deck. As of now there are only 8 sellers of the foil, and most are heavily to moderately played. Plus, most of the sellers charge extra shipping. If a good common Faerie gets printed that springs the deck back into regular Pauper play, watch out for this card.

Wall of Tanglecord is an interesting Scars of Mirrodin common that is a 0/6 for only 2 mana. It also has the ability to gain reach for only a single Green mana. It’s been on a steady rise for a couple of years due to the Defender “tribe” gaining popularity, especially because of Arcades, the Strategist in EDH. The foils have a lot of play in the peaks and valleys of their price chart, so I’d say to avoid this card unless that trend starts going up.

Tinder Wall is worth noting only because of the Coldsnap Theme Deck reprint. Originally printed in Ice Age, Tinder Wall is a fun little card that was printed in a Modern border because of those Theme Decks. If people start buying these four at a time, this is a low-population card that could go nuts.

The rest of the deck is full of cards that either see other play in the Pauper format or just aren’t financially relevant at the moment.

What Can We Learn About Pauper Finance from the RUG Defenders Deck?

While some rogue decks never impact Magic Finance all that much, their existence sometimes allows us to peer into the price history of cards we may have otherwise overlooked. Keep in mind that there are enough casual Kitchen Table MTG players out there that are building Defender decks independent of competitive play. Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, and Wall of Roots are all important cards in a casual Defenders deck. So, there is always some sort of demand for these cards.

Typically, casual players don’t chase foils of commons. That market is typically for collectors and competitive players. The foils in the RUG defenders deck don’t seem to be great investments at the moment, except for perhaps Modern Masters Mulldrifter. But, there is movement with some of these foils, particularly Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, and Wall of Roots. They are all worth watching.

It’s always important as someone looking to invest in Pauper Finance to recognize cards that are not only seeing positive price movement, but have low supply, and also see play in multiple decks or formats (such as Mulldrifter). Going forward, we’ll look at potential bargains to be found in the top decks of the format, as well.

Ultimate Masters is probably the most valuable reprint set ever printed for Magic: the Gathering. In addition to reprinting classic cards that are often seen in competitive play, Ultimate Masters also featured a set of box toppers, which are quite valuable. So, when asking what is the most expensive card in Ultimate Masters, there are three things to consider: the most expensive non-foil, the most expensive foil, and the most expensive box topper.

What is the Most Expensive Non-Foil Card in Ultimate Masters?

In late January 2019, Liliana of the Veil was the most expensive non-foil card in Ultimate Masters. As a card that sees plenty of play in the Modern format, it should come as little surprise that this mythic rare was commanding a price tag of around $70 USD. The powerful three-mana planeswalker was followed by other powerful Modern cards: Cavern of Souls, Karn Liberated, Snapcaster Mage, Tarmogoyf, and Noble Hierarch.

What is the Most Expensive Foil Card in Ultimate Masters?

The Ultimate Masters set is full of pricey foils, despite one foil coming in every pack. The most expensive foil card in the Ultimate Masters set is Liliana of the Veil, which has sold on eBay for between $125 and $150 as of January 2019. Liliana is followed by Karn Liberated, Demonic Tutor, Snapcaster Mage, and Karn Liberated all in the $125 range. On TCGPlayer, you can find these foils for a bit less money.

What is the Most Expensive Box Topper Card in Ultimate Masters?

The Ultimate Masters Box Toppers are highly collectible, highly sought-after extended art versions of many of the best cards in the set. The most expensive Box Topper that’s sold on eBay by the end of January 2019 was a Dark Depths graded by Beckett as a Gem Mint BGS 9.5. It sold for $1275 on January 3rd, 2019. A BGS 9.5 Tarmogoyf and BGS 9.5 Liliana of the Veil each sold for $660 each a short time later.

Ultimate Masters is a great set, and even if you can’t get ahold of any of the Box Toppers, this set is one of the best to collect cards from if you’re looking to build a valuable Magic the Gathering collection.

One of the “boons” cycle that gave you 3 of something for a single Mana, Healing Salve is clearly the worst of the five. Of course, when you're up against Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and even Giant Growth, that's pretty hard to beat. Gaining 3 life isn't horrible, of course. Also, preventing up to three damage to a target is useful, too.

Healing Salve allows you to save a creature from targeted damage such as Lightning Bolt or combat damage. But compared to those other four boons, it's a pretty mediocre card, since it's so situational. Still, while we look at it today as a pretty weak card, it wasn’t all that bad in the beginning. It’s also still such an iconic, classic card that it’s been reprinted numerous times, including in Duel Decks: Divine VS Demonic.

Despite being one of the more worthless cards in the original Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets today, Beta copies of Healing Salve sell for over $5 US and Alpha copies push $10. Despite being relatively weak even by early Magic standards, it was still playable back in the earlier days, and is still a collectible in black border.

When graded by PSA or BGS, Healing Salve is actually somewhat valuable. An Alpha copy in BGS 9 or higher condition can fetch over $30. On a side note, the rare “Summer Magic” variants of the Fourth Edition set includes Healing Salve, and a BGS 9 copy was receiving bids in excess of $70.

“(Insert name of uncommon legend creature here) is good” could easily be a theme in the Dominaria set. But, Adeliz, the Cinder Wind is actually quite good. Even as an uncommon, Adeliz quickly found herself on buylists for bulk rare price or even slightly higher. She also has had a positive demand curve.

Adeliz, the Cinder Wind is a blue/red Wizard that screams Wizard tribal. A 2/2 with flying and haste is always good for three mana. Also, her ability to pump all Wizards you control whenever you can an instant or sorcery spell - even herself - works on either offense or defense.

Unsurprisingly, Adeliz has proven good enough to be part of Standard Wizards Aggro at three copies. Even as a Legendary Creature that you can only control one copy of at a time, Adeliz pumps your whole team, so having extra copies in hand isn’t really a problem. You’ll want extra copies of her to drop in case they deal with your first Adeliz.

Adeliz, the Cinder Wind is even good enough that she’s appeared in Modern Izzet Wizards at two copies. There are enough one drop spells that can quickly activate her ability, such as Lightning Bolt and Serum Visions. Even in a fast format like Modern, she makes Wizards a viable aggro deck She’s even popped up in an occasional Vintage Grixis Control deck as a quick source of hasty damage in the air.

With how expansive Wizards are as a tribe in Magic, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Adeliz, the Cinder Wind is also good in EDH. While Adeliz, the Cinder Wind Commander decks aren’t all that popular just yet, they gained some powerful allies in Guilds of Ravnica with Niv-Mizzet, Parun and Murmuring Mystic. She’s definitely one to watch as a Wizard Tribal Commander.

Really, Adeliz is way too good a creature to be uncommon. She's a solid card for any Magic collection, but also a great card for the Magic card investor binder. Foil copies of Adeliz floored at about $2, so if you happen across them, they’re worth grabbing. The non foil doesn’t have a super high ceiling, but he’s 60-card Constructed playable. Adeliz is really fun to build around and a home run card for Magic players both new and old.

Quasiduplicate is a sorcery spell from Magic the Gathering’s Guilds of Ravnica set. This three-mana spell not only can clone one of your creatures, but it also has Jump-start. A mechanic new to Guilds of Ravnica, Jump-start allows you to cast a spell from the graveyard by paying its mana cost plus discarding a card.

Because of its Jump-start ability, Quasiduplicate is very similar to an older instant spell from Innistrad called Cackling Counterpart. That card was better in that you could play it at instant speed and was still a three-mana spell. It also had flashback for 5UU (seven mana). While it never saw much competitive Standard play, Cackling Counterpart did find its way into a few Delver decks.

What makes Quasiduplicate better than Cackling Counterpart is that it essentially can use flashback for only three mana. You do have to discard a card, but it could be a card you don’t even need, like an extra land. Seven mana was just too much for a commitment for a clone in Standard or other competitive formats. In this way, Quasiduplicate is better, although it can only be cast at sorcery speed.

What is the best deck for Quasiduplicate in Standard?

Dimir Quasiduplicate is a deck that has gone undefeated in Guilds of Ravnica standard on Magic Online. It features four copies of Quasiduplicate, plus three of the other best clone in Standard with Hostage Taker. Your primary targets for your Quasiduplicate and Hostage Takers are Ravenous Chupacabra, Doom Whisperer, and Dream Eater.

The Chupacabra helps you clear your opponent’s board, and being able to copy that ability for three mana is really solid. Copying Doom Whisperer gets you a 6/6 trampling flyer for three mana. Dream Eater lets you surveil 4, while also bouncing an opponent’s nonland permanent, and the copy does, too. Getting to throw dead cards from your top 4 in the graveyard and rearrange the order of the rest on top of your deck is already good - doing that plus bouncing something for three mana is absurd.

Quasiduplicate has also been tried out in Izzet Drakes, in order to copy one of your Enigma Drake or Crackling Drake. It’s a decent concept - copying your Crackling Drake draws you a card as well asa powerful attacker. Hlwever, this is a case where Quasiduplicate being an instant would make it a lot more releveant in that deck. It’s a bit superfluous in that deck.

Is Quasiduplicate an Infinite Combo With Beamsplitter Mage?

Many Magic the Gathering players speculated that Quasiduplicate might be a great spell to play alongside with Beampslitter Mage. While the Mage can copy spells, it does not go inifinite with Quasiduplicate. That’s because even if you copy the Beamsplitter Mage, its ability to copy a spell only works on spells being cast, not being copied. Still, can certainly work in the same deck. Still, while a competitive deck utilizing those two at its core is still to be built, but there are some brewing possibilities with Beamsplitter Mage and Quasiduplicate in the same deck.

While Quasiduplicate can’t go infinite with Beamsplitter Mage, it’s a plenty useful spell. There are plenty of creatures with strong enter the battlefield effects that can benefit you with Quasiduplicate making a token copy. While it hasn’t yet found its way into Modern, it’s not impossible to see it making some sort of impact in the right deck.

Also, while Quasiduplicate certainly isn’t a chase card from Guilds of Ravnica, it is a card to watch. It’s been a top selling card from the set before and Quasiduplicate is not a card to overlook even with its low price.

Foil is what you may call a “poor man’s” Force of Will. Originally printed in Magic the Gathering’s Prophecy set, Foil has been played in EDH for quite some time. It was reprinted with the same artwork with a modern border in Duel Decks: Elspeth VS Tezzeret - to this day probably my favorite of the Duel Decks and not just because of Elspeth, Knight-Errant.

Foil also was selected for reprint in Ultimate Masters in 2018. Not only did it gain new artwork and the chance to get a far less expensive copy of Foil in foil (that’s fun to say), but Foil also gets a rarity downshift. Always printed at uncommon before, Foil has been shifted to common rarity for Ultimate Masters.

Why is Foil at Common a Big Deal? Foil in Pauper

Rarity downshifts are common in Masters reprint sets. But Foil, in particular, is a card that’s primed to impact the Pauper format, a format that uses only cards printed at common. Originally a massively popular format on Magic the Gathering: Online, Pauper is now extremely popular and well supported by local game stores in Paper Magic.

What makes Foil so good? If you look at Foil, it doesn’t really look like a tremendously competitive card. It’s a four mana Counterspell essentially. In Pauper, you already have good old Counterspell, which is only two mana. But, Foil has an alternate casting cost. You don’t have to pay any mana if you discard an Island and another card from your hand.

This alternate casting cost makes Foil very similar to the Legacy staple, Force of Will. That counterspell costs five mana, but if you exile a Blue card from your hand and pay 2 life, you can cast it for free. While that’s definitely a minus one as far as card advantage is concerned, you’re typically going to be countering something significant when you cast it.

While Foil is essentially a minus two in card advantage if you cast it for free, four mana to counter a spell isn’t really that terrible, especially in the later game. Also, pitching an Island and any card from your hand is nowhere as bad as exiling a card that has to be Blue (an Island doesn’t count in that case). Because the cards go to the graveyard, they can be brought back somehow later.

Is Foil Going to See Competitive Pauper Play?

While there are many counterspells in Pauper, having essentially a common version of Force of Will is better than it looks on paper. Also keep in mind that cards with the Madness mechanic, which gives cards an alternate casting cost when they’re discarded, is present in Pauper.

But, you don’t need to have a deck that revolves around Madness for Foil to be good. Here’s an Izzet Blitz Pauper deck that features two copies of Foil.

The entire point of an Izzet Blitz Pauper deck is to build up your Kiln Fiend and Nivix Cyclops to deal massive amounts of damage. Foil helps get you there by giving you a “free” counterspell. While discarding an Island and another card can be a steep cost, it’s not a steep cost if you’re going to win the game because of what you counter.

In a deck like this one, you don’t care if you’re discarding a card for Foil. You want Striper Riverwinder or Gurmag Angler in the graveyard anyway to Exhume. Foil is actually a better card in this particular kind of deck than Force of Will, since you’d have to put one of your Striper Riverwinders or other Blue cards in exile instead of in the grave. You can also discard Gurmag Angler, too, or anything else for that matter.

Foil in EDH / Commander

While not exactly a staple in the EDH format, Foil is a useful counterspell that sees a fair amount of play in several Commander decks. Talrand, Sky Summoner, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, and Baral, Chief of Compliance are far and away the most common Commanders that utilize Foil as part of their countermagic suite. You will have plenty of Islands to pitch in these sorts of decks.

While Foil had a price over $1 before its reprinting, that was mainly due to its relative rarity being printed in an older set. Duel Deck copies aren’t all that plentiful. But, being reprinted at common makes it far more accessible, although the overall demand from the Pauper community will likely keep this one of the more valuable commons in Ultimate Masters. Also, you won’t have to pay $30 for a foil copy of Foil anymore, which is a plus.

Swiftblade Vindicator is a two-mana Human Soldier from Magic the Gathering’s Guilds of Ravnica set. The Vindicator is a mere 1/1 creature, but also has Double Strike, Vigilance, and Trample. Double Strike and Vigilance makes this a pretty useful card on both offense and defense. But, you may ask yourself, why would you have trample on a 1/1 creature?

In the Guilds of Ravnica set, the Boros guild (the Red/White guild of Ravnica) has a mechanic called Mentor. Whenever a creature with Mentor attacks, it puts a +1/+1 counter on an attacking creature with lesser power than the creature with Mentor.

Tajic, Legion’s Edge is a perfect example of a creature with this ability. Tajic alone can boost a Swiftblade Vindicator twice, since he has 3 power. Being a 3-mana creature, Tajic and Swiftblade Vindicator are perfect companions in an aggro deck.

It’s not surprising that in pre-orders Swiftblade Vindicator and Tajic, Legion’s Edge were among the top cards players wanted to get their hands on early from Guilds of Ravnica. Swiftblade Vindicator is a powerful little creature.

While you probably won’t see the Vindicator do much damage in the popular Human decks in Modern, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Vindicator sneaks into the format, especially with Tajic, Legion’s Edge around to prevent non-combat damage to other creatures you control.

The Magic 2014 Core Set is definitely an enchantment-happy set. Of the many interesting Enchantments, Path of Bravery is definitely a good card. It would later be reprinted in Iconic Masters. As long as you have more life than you started with (or even the same number you started with, in fact), all of your creatures gain +1/+1. Then, whenever your creatures attack, you gain life equal to the number of creatures that you have attacking. It can be one or a thousand. In any case, this life-gain can be quite substantial

The starting life total bit is clearly intended to make it not break Commander - where you start at 40 life in a multi-player setting) In Constructed, White Weenie was needing a card like Path of Bravery for awhile. The first half of this card already makes this card a variant of Honor of the Pure, but one that doesn’t restrict itself to white creatures. But the second half of this card is what makes it so powerful. Having lots of little creatures consistently gaining you life not only keeps you in the game, but it makes it pretty much impossible for burn decks to race you.

The best part of Path of Bravery is that it costs 2 colorless and a White mana. This means that it’s easy to splash in green-white, red-white, or blue-white creature-based decks. With Soulmender and Fiendslayer Paladin already a part of Magic 2014, plus creatures with Extort from Gatecrash, life-gain was suddenly looking like a valid mechanic again!

Despite this being a darn good card, it saw fairly limited play in Standard. You’d find three copies of Path of Bravery in the occasional White Weenie deck. It was also a pretty strong card in Limited, especially at Grand Prix Prague 2013. The deck that Path of Bravery most shined in was Martyr Life in Modern, a variant of Martyr Proc. Like the older Soul Sisters decks before it, it relied on Soul Warden, Soul’s Attendant, and Spectral Procession to flood the board with a bunch of creatures. It was called Martyr Life due to playing Martyr of Sands, which could gain you a ton of life, plus the one copy of Path of Bravery in the main deck and one copy of Chalice of Life in the sideboard This was actually a fairly successful deck from 2013 well into 2014.

Since late 2014, Path of Bravery pretty much disappeared from competitive play, but not from play entirely. It still sees a fair amount of play in Commander across a wide variety of decks, including Darien, King of Kjeldor, Karlov of the Ghost Council, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, and other decks with either a weenie creature or lifegain theme. While Path of Bravery isn’t quite as good in Commander due to having to stay over 40 life, it’s still a solid Enchantment.

Could Path of Bravery re-emerge in Modern someday? It’s certainly possible. As a card that did have its day in the competitive spotlight, you never know.

Burning Anger(no relation to the Glyph of Burning Anger from World of Warcraft) is an Enchant Creature card - more popularly known as an Aura - from the Magic 2015 Core Set. Unlike many of the Auras from the Theros block, however, Burning Anger wasn't really a viable option for the popular Heroic deck archetype.

This Enchantment costs 4 and a Red mana to cast. Auras with a Converted Mana Cost of five need to be something special. They do exist, but is this one? To be honest, Burning Anger does give the Enchanted creature a decent effect: it gains the ability to deal damage equal to its power to target creature or player. The fact that it's creature or player is definitely important. Put on a 7-power creature card likePhytotitan, that's a pretty powerful card.

Unfortunately, this card is a bit mana-intensive to fit into the mana curve of most decks that would play Auras. It was useful in Limited, sure, if big creatures are already in the game-plan. It's going to be a fringe card even in the Aura-happy Commander environment, as it's in the wrong colors for the most popular Aura-friendly Commanders:Bruna, Light of Alabaster,Krond the Dawn-Clad,Zur the Enchanter, etc.) However, some other Commanders that make the use of auras, such asUril the Miststalker, and evenKresh the Bloodbraided andZurgo Helmsmasher, have made limited use of this five-mana Aura.

Burning Anger has a good design, and it's probably properly costed. But, it's just another bulk Core Set rare when all is said and done.

As someone who started playing Magic the Gathering during the Lorwyn set block, I was very familiar with the Kithkin Soldier Preeminent Captainwhen he was reprinted in the Magic 2015 Core Set. Kithkins were a competitive tribal deck back in those days. I've always been a huge fan of Soldiers, in general. After all, my favorite planeswalker isElspeth, Knight-Errant.

Today, Preeminent Captain only really sees play in Commander decks which revolve around a Soldier Tribal theme. Despite a lack of competitive play, before the reprint, he was still a pretty valuable card from Morningtide. The reason for this lies in the power of his ability.

Preeminent Captain is a 2/2 Kithkin Soldier that costs 2W to cast. Not only does he have First Strike, but whenever he declares an attack, you may put a Soldier creature card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped and attacking. This could even be an additional Preeminent Captain, although you won't get the ability from the second Captain until he next declares an attack himself. Still, this is an extremely powerful free summon. On a three mana creature, that's pretty absurd value.

Let's see what a Top 8 Standard deck from 2008 with Preeminent Captain looked like:

Obviously, this White Weenie Kithkin deck runs a lot of Soldier creatures, the only exceptions being Knight of Meadowgrain and Wizened Cenn in the mainboard. Kithkin decks often ran two copies, if not three, of Preeminent Captain to speed up the assault of an already pretty effective aggro deck. While he was a complementary piece, he allowed the deck to have some very explosive turns, especially when you got two or even all three on the battlefield at once.

So, considering he was pretty good in this and pretty much every kitchen table deck that was focused on Soldiers, how would he fare in the future?

Preeminent Captain and Captain of the Watch

While they were never in Standard together, Preeminent Captain and Captain of the Watch have been linked ever since the latter Soldier was printed in the Magic 2010 Core Set. She'd be printed again in the Magic 2013 Core Set and also in the Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Kiora. Even though they rarely saw competitive play together, they have obvious synergy that has made them fine pals.

Captain of the Watch is a whopping six mana to cast (4WW) but her abilities are worth the cost. She's only a 3/3 herself, but this Human Soldier gives all other soldiers you control +1/+1 and vigilance. Vigilance means that your Soldier creatures don't have to tap when they attack, meaning they can stay open to block or tap for abilities. She also brings three 1/1 Soldier tokens into play when she enters the battlefield.

While Preeminent Captain's ability brings the Captain of the Watch into play tapped and attacking, this is OK. We're bringing in a six-mana creature into play for FREE after all, along with her tokens and a +1/+1 boost to Preeminent Captain and any other soldiers you control. The vigilance won't be a factor until the next combat, but that's OK. Cheating Captain of the Watch into play is enough reason to run her, after all.

Even though Captain of the Watch barely saw any Standard play, she DID see Legacy play. Albeit, it was limited, but as you can see from this 2014 Magic Online Legacy Daily list, she did so with her partner in crime, Preeminent Captain!

Only Aven Mindcensor was not a Soldier in this deck, and you weren't going to want to put Mindcensor into play tapped and attacking anyway. This deck takes Preeminent Captain to the best of his ability, giving you lots of card advantage. Enlistment Officer comes into play searching up another Soldier. Daru Warchief pumps your Soldiers and makes them cheaper to cast. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben slows down your opponent's non-creature spells. And even in Legacy, putting a six-mana Soldier into play along with three tokens is just extremely powerful, not to mention those tokens are 2/2 with just the Captain of the Watch on board.

While this deck is pretty great on paper, it never really took off into major tournaments. It was a well-built deck, though, and it really displays the true power of the combo between Preeminent Captain and Captain of the Watch.

Preeminent Captain in Magic 2015 Standard

With his reprint in Magic 2015, Preeminent Captain came into a Standard environment where it seemed he should play a role. There were a ton of playable Soldiers in Standard right then. Granted some of the best Soldiers available at that time, Precinct Captain and Loxodon Smiter, were soon rotating out of Standard. Still, Theros block is chock full of them, especially those with Heroic. As it would turn out, Heroic decks would still be good for awhile.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos was the best Soldier in Standard, by far. Along with him, there were a bevy of other playable White Soldiers which included: Akroan Skyguard, Archetype of Courage, Boros Elite, Favored Hoplite, Hero of Iroas, Soldier of the Pantheon, and Vanguard of Brimaz. If you wanted to go Red/White, there were also Akroan Crusader, Akroan Hoplite, and Battlewise Hoplite as solid Heroic Soldiers.

Also, for a short time before his Standard rotation, Spark Trooper was be a nice little 6/1 surprise with trample and lifelink to throw into play. Yeah, he's a soldier! There were also a couple of interesting Legendary Creatures, Anax and Cymede and Daxos of Meletis, who also appeared to be Soldiers that would benefit from having Preeminent Captain around.

White Weenie and Boros Aggro decks were already pretty good, and having a tool like Preeminent Captain to accelerate the board state seemed like it could push these decks even further up the competitive ladder., With all of the pump spells available in Standard to keep your Captains alive, you were going to potentially get a few free creature summons out of this guy.

Pro player Melissa DeTora offered up a couple of pretty solid decklists that featured Preeminent Captain on TCGPlayer back in 2014. There was a Red/White Heroic list and a Red/White Aggro list which is featured below.

Oh, yeah, Dryad Militant is a Soldier, too. This is a great list. Unfortunately, while Red/White Aggro decks, both Heroic and not, enjoyed competitive success, they left Preeminent captain behind. Why is that?

There are a couple of fairly easy explanations. The Standard rotation did knock out a lot of great Soldiers from Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash. Even then, though, there were still plenty of Soldiers left for Preeminent Captain to throw into play. But, were any of them worth it? Unlike in the old days, there wasn't a tribal deck like Kithkins that Preeminent Captain could accelerate with explosive plays.

The best thing that Preeminent Captain could put into play after the rotation of Spark Trooper was Brimaz, King of Oreskos. One of the best parts of Brimaz is that he brings a 1/1 token with vigilance with him when he attacks. Since he comes into play without declaring an attack off of Preeminent Captain, he was basically a 3/4 vanilla when he first entered play. Sure, it's worth putting him into play, but without the token, he becomes considerably less valuable.

Also, because he didn't really benefit Heroic decks, most players didn't see a benefit to including him. Boros Aggro was definitely a deck, too, but people decided they'd rather play a double strike creature like Fabled Hero in the three-drop slot rather than Preeminent Captain who, while a fine creature, didn't really fit into that Standard environment. He proved to just be a bit too slow and his payoff just wasn't enough.

It's too bad, because Preeminent Captain is a great card that needed a reprint for quite a long time. Of course, people played him Standard, but not with great success. He simply didn't find a chance to play a competitive role.

But with the Modern format becoming a thing, would he find his way into a deck into the relatively new Modern metagame?

Preeminent Captain in Modern

The short answer when it comes to Preeminent Captain in Modern is no. Preeminent Captain doesn't see competitive play in Modern. At least, not yet.

Soldiers are a tribe that continue to get support set after set. Knights are the better tribe in Modern, though, since they have the powerful Knight Exemplar as a Lord. Soldiers don't really have anything like that. But, a Soldier deck in Modern is certainly playable, if not super competitive.

In Modern, Preeminent Captain has powerful allies in Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Brimaz, King of Orekos, and even Precinct Captain (who creates a token when he deals combat damage to a player, so he works well with Preeminent Captain.) Of course, you have the old standby of Captain of the Watch. Even in the fairly quick Modern format, if you manage to declare an attack with Preeminent Captain putting Captain of the Watch into play, that's pretty tough to answer.

The reason a deck that centers around abusing Preeminent Captain is so difficult to build in Modern is that Lightning Bolt and Anger of the Gods are around. He simply won't last long enough to really do a lot. Captain of the Watch has a similar problem, being a 3/3, and she had to deal with Lightning Bolt when it was in Standard with her in Magic 2010. The only way that you can make this deck work is to have lots of +1/+1 buffs. It's doable, certainly, but Field Marshal certainly isn't enough and the other best Soldier lords aren't Modern-playable.

If there's a really good Soldier Lord printed in the future, then yes, a deck with Preeminent Captain could at least be a fun deck that could win at some local Modern tournaments.

Overall, Preeminent Captain is a primarily casual card. In that capacity, he's plenty good. He serves a role in Commander decks like Darien, King of Kjeldor and Odric, Master Tactician, who play a lot of Soldiers that Preeminent Captain can accelerate into play. He's a pretty good creature who can do some fairly unfair things if the right creature is printed. He'll need to have a better play than Captain of the Watch to make it in today's Magic, but for what he is, Preeminent Captain is a darn good Soldier who's already enjoyed his day in the sun.

Will he rise again? Only time, and the printing of more cards, will tell.

In Magic the Gathering's 2015 Core Set, the Convoke mechanic first introduced during Ravnica block was alive and well. Spells with Convoke allow you to tap creatures in order to pay the mana cost of that spell. The cool thing about Convoke is that you could actually tap creatures for colored mana if that creature was the same color as the spell.Endless Obedienceis one such spell from Magic 2015 with Convoke.

Endless Obedience is an uncommon Sorcery that costs 4BB to cast and it puts target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. However, because it has Convoke, you can pay 1 less for each creature you tap. It could actually become a free reanimation spell if you had six creatures to tap, including at least two black creatures. Free Reanimator spells are pretty good, and there really aren't any. Plus, Endless Obedience has beautiful artwork featuring the popular planeswalker Liliana Vess. It's a pretty decent uncommon all around.

Being that it could be cast for a greatly reduced cost, it wasn't surprising that it did see some Standard play. While it was never part of a dominant deck, there were a few decks that managed to get Top 8 finishes during Theros/Khans of Tarkir Standard It also found a home in a few Commander decks such as Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Liliana, Heretical Healer. However, with so many reanimation spells available in Commander, it hasn't really seen play in that format

Endless Obedience in Standard

Endless Obedience did see some Standard play, but it only had a handful of appearances in top decks. The highest profile deck that ran Endless Obedience was anAbzan Midrange deck that featured Satyr Wayfinder and Commune with the Gods to dump creatures in the graveyard. The deck could reanimate things like Ashen Rider, Siege Rhino, and Hornet Queen from the grave. Hornet Queen and her tokens also could help cast Endless Obedience. There were two copies of Obedience in the deck. It made for a 3rd place finish in the 2014 Nebraska State Championships. Someone ran a similar deck to aTop 8 finish on Magic Online with only one copy of Endless Obedience.

My favorite deck that ran Endless Obedience in Standard, though, wasa somewhat unique version of Sultai Whip, a deck based around Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Whip of Erebos. It topped a Daily event on Magic Online back in October 2014.

While Endless Obedience is much too resource intensive for Eternal formats like Modern, it's a pretty cool card nonetheless. It's really never going to be worth much, but it's still a fun card to have in your collection.

Whenever you see a common on TCGPlayer best-seller lists, you want to pay attention.Larger Than Life from Kaladesh has been a best-seller in late June 2018. It’s not incredibly surprising to see people want to pick up their playsets of this card. It’s seen play in some Modern infect lists and Green/Black Pummeler lists in Standard. But why the sudden interest?

This is a common that could make an impact in Pauper, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t. Two mana for +4/+4 at instant speed isn’t bad, but the trample is huge. Pauper Infect can be a thing, after all. There’s also Mono-Green Stompy, one of the oldest deck archetypes in Magic. You don’t have access to the premier pump spells like Blossoming Defense, Might of Old Krosa, and Mutagenic Growth in Pauper.

Larger Than Life is a decent pump spell that had a spike in interest. While it hasn’t shown up in any other top lists besides those mentioned, it certainly could pop up in some future Pauper lists in addition to things like Rancor, Hunger of the Howlpack, and Vines of Vastwood. Whether it will ever be more than a one or two of in lists like those, though, remains to be seen.

Of the two Innistrad Event Decks, Hold the Line clearly has more bang for your buck than its green/black counterpart, Deathfed. While Deathfed has some fine rares to add to your collection, Hold the Line is a more playable deck right out of the box. Plus, it has more cards that have held up in value over time.

Let’s take a look at how playable Hold the Line is and just how much it’s worth today.

Champion of the Parish, Elite Inquisitor, and a pair of Mirran Crusaders were worth a good chunk of the value in this deck. The Champion gets a +1/+1 counter each time you have a Human enter the battlefield under your control. It’s the best card in the deck. Being that this is an all Human deck, he’s very powerful.

Elite Inquisitor’s value hasn’t held up, but they were about $1.50 at the time because they were efficient 2/2 creatures with first strike and vigilance. They also have protection from Vampires, Zombies, and Werewolves - all important creature types at the time.

Mirran Crusader is the other really good creature in this deck. Not only is he a 2/2 with double strike for three mana, but he has protection from black and green. Most removal couldn’t touch him, and neither could a lot of creatures at the time.

Their support troops are also quite solid, especially a full play set of Fiend Hunter. The Fiend Hunter was great in dealing with problem creatures, and was a staple of a lot of decks at that time. Doomed Traveler is a great value creature, because when he dies, you get a flying 1/1 spirit. Elite Vanguard is a vanilla 2/1, but he’s only one mana.

Gideon’s Lawkeeper helps you tap down opponent’s creatures, which is very handy. Accorder Paladin is a cute 3/1 with battle cry, which gives your other creatures +1/+0 when he attacks. We think of Signal Pest and Hero of Bladehold for this ability, but Accorder Paladin has it, too. Not bad for a 2-mana creature.

Non-Creature Spell Breakdown

Silver-Inlaid Dagger and Butcher’s Cleaver are solid Innistrad equipments. There are two of each in the deck. The Dagger gives +2/+0, but it gives an additional +1/+0 if the equipped creature is a human. It’s only 1 mana to cast and the equip cost is 2, so it’s well-costed. The funny thing is that you’d most likely want to stick this on the flying tokens left over from Doomed Traveler, but it’s pretty effective on a Human.

Butcher’s Cleaver costs 3 to cast and 3 to equip, which is fairly hefty. It does give the equipped creature +3/+0, and if it’s a Human, it also grants lifelink. While that’s pretty good, that’s 6 mana to invest. I’m not really a fan of this equipment in this deck. It’s properly costed, but it’s just a bit too mana-intensive to be worth it most of the time.

Bonds of Faith, on the other hand, is a pretty cool Aura. For 2 mana, it gives the enchanted creature +2/+2 if it’s a Human. If it’s not, then that creature can’t attack or block. Basically, it’s a pump spell that could alternatively be a Pacifism. It’s actually a sweet little card. It saw sideboard play in Naya Humans.

Honor of the Pure is a must in any mono-white deck. Two copies isn’t bad, although adding a third could be helpful. A playset of Oblivion Ring allows you to answer most serious threats that will be posed against this deck. At the time, Titans were quite popular, so you needed an answer for the 6/6 Giants.

This is a very good sideboard. Every card in here is pretty self-explanatory. Nevermore is still a great card in Eternal formats. Back then, you would name top cards like “Liliana of the Veil” or “Koth of the Hammer” or perhaps even “Birthing Pod.”

Deck Strategy

Depending on how competitive your local environment was, this was a pretty solid deck that with minor adjustments could perform well at a local tournament, especially a Friday Night Magic event. That’s what these Event Decks were designed to do. This mono-white deck that focuses on swarming the board and deals with threats pretty well. Deathfed’s problem is that it was too focused on filling the graveyard to power up certain creatures. This deck is just a lot more versatile.

To make this a truly playable deck in tournaments, you’d want to get 3 more Champion of the Parish and 2 more Mirran Crusaders. You’d cut the Elite Inquisitor and the Gideon’s Lawkeepers. While Lawkeeper isn’t a bad creature, really, you want to be aggressive, and those guys are a lot more aggressive.

Is it Worth Buying the Hold the Line Event Deck Today?

Like the Deathfed deck, the Hold the Line deck has a lot of cards that still see play even in 2018. However, the value between the two decks is actually pretty similar. Still, you can find this deck for as little as $25. What’s worth something in here?

Champion of the Parish is $5, due to strong Modern playability. Mirran Crusaders are worth $4 a piece, so that’s another $8. Honor of the Pure is a $2+ card, and there’s two in here. But after that, you really only have Nevermore at $1 and a bunch of decent spare parts. This was a better deck as far as resale value back in the day, certainly.

You’d want to get this deck closer to $20 to make your money back. However, the difference with Hold the Line is that this is a more playable deck out of the box. So, for that reason alone, it would be worth picking up for the $25.

In this week’s episode of Magic Card Investor, we look at a card that’s very different from the first four we’ve considered. We’ve covered a control deck finisher, a Modern combo deck staple, a casual card that’s quite good in Pauper and Commander, and a Core Set 2019 card that may be greatly undervalued in the early going. All are still solid investments.

But now, we look at a card that’s actually bottomed out. If you’ve been playing Magic the Gathering for awhile, you may be surprised at the card.

So, here’s an interesting graph of Mutavault from MTGStocks. I really like that they added TCGPlayer Market Price to their stock charts because it gives you a better feel of what people are actually doing with a particular card. The reason I show you this graph is to illustrate what it looks like when a card’s market bottoms out.

But we’re talking about it because it’s simply not going to go lower. I mean, it’s freaking Mutavault.

So, when I looked on Monday, its market price was $9.40. That’s compared to a TCGPlayer Mid price of $12. The mid price is usually what a lot of people use when valuing a card, but people are shifting towards market price for a good reason. It reflects the actual sales of a card.

What’s more interesting is at the time of this writing, you can get lightly played foils of Mutavault for $12! For a card that sees as much Modern play as this guy does, you won’t care if it’s in near-mint condition if you’re looking to play with it.

What’s so great about Mutavault? Well, it’s a generically good nonbasic land. Not only does it tap for colorless mana, but for a single mana you can turn it into a 2/2 creature with all creature types until end of turn. This makes Mutavault particularly awesome in Tribal decks, especially Elves, Faeries, Merfolk, and Spirits. A lot of tribal decks still play as many as four copies of the “man-land.”

Originally printed in Morningtide, this was once an extremely expensive card. The reprinting in Magic 2014 greatly diminished this card’s value, although full art Champ Promos are still among the most expensive cards in Magic ($600!). But lately, even with more tribal support being released in Dominaria and Magic 2019, Mutavault has actually been on a downward slide.What’s going on here?

Well, a big reason for the card’s sudden slide is a Grand Prix foil promo that has the same artwork. It’s selling for between $10-12. Because of that, the nonfoil printings are taking a hit. Why buy a nonfoil M14 copy when you can just buy a foil promo copy that looks just as good as a foil M14 one?

Also, cards fall in and out of favor with players. Mutavault is a card that’s always up and down. As you can see from the chart, the market price and mid price often meet, then diverge, then meet again, then diverge. Recently, the divergence has been striking, and that’s because people just aren’t buying them for over $10. That’s especially true when the Grand Prix promo foil is selling around that price, too.

This is why it’s important to actually watch a card’s market price trend, which is far more accurate than seeing what people list cards for and hope to get. It’s much like watching eBay completed listings, but a lot easier to track.

Speaking of eBay… there’s lots of listings for $12 that simply aren’t selling or are taking best offers. That’s for both the Grand Prix foil AND the M14 version. The Morningtide version, long the more expensive printing, is sharing a similar fate.

So, what should you do? I’d be picking up the Grand Prix foils at the lowest price that you can. With the M14 foils selling for little more than $20, there’s no reason not to get the cheaper premium version. Also, if you happen upon nonfoils under $10 and M14 foils around $12 you should jump on them.

All it would take for Mutavault to hit $20 again is a deck with a Top 8 Modern finish with 4 copies in the main. This card was $35 or more at its M14 Standard peak. And if you watch the long term chart, this is a card that sees lots of ebbs and flows as sets with lots of tribal support get released. Commander drives a bit of the sales, as well as just casual sales, which are always going to be higher than competitive sales. Most players want four of these if they plan on playing most tribal strategies.

Also, Grand Prix promos tend to recover pretty well. Look at Stoneforge Mystic who hit a low of about $15 before being $35 market price today. Primeval Titan got as low as $10 before recovering to around $20. Batterskull recovered from a low of $13 to $25. Other cards haven’t been quite as lucky after getting the Grand Prix Promo treatment, like Griselbrand.. Also, this one has the same artwork as the original card. Still, being a card you really want four-of, like the Mystic and Titan, getting back to $20 isn’t out of the question.

In any case, it’s great to see such a versatile and competitively relevant card available for such a low price. It’s really not hard to see Mutavault doubling in price in the near future, but it’s also a card to take some caution with. But unlike a lot of the other Grand Prix promos like Mystic, Prime Time, and Griselbrand, Mutavault isn’t a card that anyone is thinking about banning in any format. So, it’s a pretty safe bet to pick these up as you see them in the $10 range and hold them long-term.

Any other cards you see bottoming out and being great long-term holds? Let us know in the comments!

Life's Legacy is a potentially very powerful Green draw spell from the Magic 2015 Core Set. At first, Life's Legacy looks like a Sorcery version of an older card calledGreater Good, without the drawback of discarding three cards. But as Greater Good is an Enchantment, very popular in Commander, this is a two-mana Sorcery.

Yes, this is an extremely powerful effect. Being able to sacrifice a creature and draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power, especially in Green, is a super nifty effect. With Greater Good, you could sacrifice a creature at any time for no cost and draw cards equal to the creature's power. However, you then had to discard three cards, which is a substantial cost. But for a 4-drop enchantment (2GG) that could be used multiple times at instant speed, it's very good.

The problem with having an effect like Life's Legacy at Sorcery speed and having to sacrifice a creature as a cost to cast it, you can set yourself up for a two-for-one if it gets countered. However, if you do successfully cast this and get the effect out of it, 1G to draw three, four, or even more cards is extremely good. Even at the cost of a creature, that's definitely card advantage.

This card would've been extremely good in Standard had the very popularThragtusk still been hanging around. Imagine playing Thragtusk for 4G, gaining 5 life, then paying 1G for Life's Legacy, drawing 5 cards and getting a 3/3 beast to replace it. Seven mana for all that value seems well worth it. Alas, that never happened, although it still could in Commander…

Life's Legacy is also similar to a card calledMomentous Fall, an instant from Rise of the Eldrazi. That card also required you to sacrifice a creature, but it drew you cards in the same way and also gained you life equal to that creature's toughness. So, Life's Legacy is basically half of a Momentous Fall at Sorcery speed. But, being half the mana cost at only 2 mana, it can net you some serious advantage.

Were Life's Legacy at Instant speed like Momentous Fall, this card would be super powerful. As it is, it's a pretty cool effect. Card draw in Green is rare and precious.

Life's Legacy in Standard

There seemed to be room for Life's Legacy in the Standard metagame at the time. Several potential targets were identified early on by speculators. One popular potential target for Life's Legacy was Phytotitan, a 7/2 creature from Magic 2015 that actually comes back at the end of the turn tapped. That guy never really saw much play, unfortunately, although it was a pretty cool idea. It was also speculated that Reanimator decks at the time would sacrifice big creatures likeShadowborn Demon after using their effects to draw some cards, then bring them back later. The Demon did see some play, but Life's Legacy didn't see play in these kinds of decks.

Life's Legacy did make some competitive appearances, however. There were some Selesnya Aggro decks like this one that ran two copies of the Sorcery. These kinds of decks would use Collected Company to summon value creatures like Reverent Hunter, which could get pretty big based on your devotion to Green (how many Green mana symbols you had on permanents you controlled). Life's Legacy was a decent draw spell that could help reload your hand. It was useful tech.

Another deck that would make use of Life's Legacy was Devotion to Green, and oneGreen Devotion deck ran a single copy of the sorcery. It was nice tech to sacrifice a monstrous Polukranos, World Eater, a Soul of New Phyrexia, or huge Genesis Hydra. This was back when you had Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to generate a ton of Green mana, so you could summon these guys well ahead of the curve. Being able to create massive card advantage by cashing in a big creature and drawing a ton of cards was a nice tool to have.

While it was a decent card in those decks, it wasn't absolutely necessary to run. Still, it's hard to overlook how could this card could be in refilling your hand. A big creature is great, but in Magic, and most card games, drawing cards is usually better.

While it's a good card, it just wasn't a consistent enough draw engine to see much competitive play. The good news for Life's Legacy, though, is that it did have another format for players to use.

Life's Legacy in EDH / Commander

It was clear from the get-go that plenty of Commander decks will be able to utilize Life's Legacy quite effectively. While it hasn't become a staple in any one deck, there are plenty of Commander decks that will run a copy. The most popular choice has been Omnath, Locus of Rage, in which you can sacrifice a sizeable Elemental to draw some cards and deal 3 damage to something with Omnath's ability.

Another Commander that makes use of Life's Legacy is Yasova Dragonclaw. Essentially Act of Treason on a creature, you can steal a creature, attack with it, then sacrifice it for some cards. Life's Legacy sees play in roughly half of Yasova decks, so while it's not a staple, it's a part of the strategy for many who run her as their Commander.

Xenagos, God of Revels has a lot of big creatures, and creatures that double in size with "Xena-God's" combat ability. When your hand is depleted, Life's Legacy is a nice way to get in a sizeable attack, then draw a ton of cards.

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is a Commander who already draws a lot of cards for everyone at the table. So, why not use Life's Legacy to draw even more cards and stay ahead of the rest of the table? It's an idea many Selvala players have had, in fact.

Other Commanders that make use of Life's Legacy on a semi-regular basis include Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Titania, Protector of Argoth, and more.

Siege Dragon is an interesting Dragon from the Magic 2015 Core Set. It costs 5 colorless mana and 2 Red mana to cast. With a total converted casting cost of 7, it's already on the steep side. It's a 5/5 flyer with an interesting enter the battlefield effect: destroy all Walls your opponent controls. That's pretty flavorful, but it's interesting how specific it is about Walls. Keep in mind that this refers to the creature type of Wall, which can include cards that don't have "Wall" in their name, such as Cathedral Membrane from New Phyrexia.

However, there's much more to Siege Dragon. If your opponent controls no Walls, whenever it attacks, it deals 5 damage to each creature without flying the defending player controls. That's a pretty sweet ability. This is no Balefire Dragon. But at rare, that's still pretty powerful. It was decent in Limited and especially strong in a Sealed pool. Of course, that hasn't mattered in a long time.

Siege Dragon may not have been Standard-playable, but there have been Dragon Tribal Commander decks that found a home for him. It may not be much above a bulk rare, especially when it was competing in Standard with a far superior card in Stormbreath Dragon. If Siege Dragon had haste, though, this would've been a Standard-playable Dragon. Alas, it did not. Still, Siege Dragon does have its uses in obliterating ground troops. It gets the job done.

On the Magic Card Investor, we've looked at several different types of cards as strong investments for your Magic the Gathering collection. We've looked at top-end control finishers like Nezahal, Primal Tide. There's Scrap Trawler that's a four-of in a strong Modern deck and strong play in Commander. Then, we have Stonehorn Dignitary, a very strong card in Pauper. All of these cards are very different, yet they all have strong markets.

Today, we look at a card from the Magic 2019 Core Set that very early on proved to be a #1 TCGPlayer bestseller. That card is Demanding Dragon, a 5/5 dragon for 5 mana that has an ability that may be more powerful than some people realize. Pre-ordering for around $1 on major Magic card retailers like Card Kingdom and Channel Fireball, this rare has had a bit more demand than anticipated, especially when it comes to eBay and Amazon.

Demanding Dragon is definitely a card that more casual players can get very excited about. When he enters the battlefield, he deals 5 damage to target opponent unless he or she sacrifices a creature. That's pretty powerful, either way. Plus, he's 5 power and 5 toughness. While he may be no Thundermaw Hellkite or Stormbreath Dragon, forcing an opponent to sacrifice a creature is always a powerful play. Five damage is no joke, either.

As powerful as he sounds, why is he only $1? Well, this isn't a card that screams competitive play. But this isn't just a Dragon. This is a creature with a generically powerful effect that can slot into a variety of midrange decks. Really, he's very dependent on the meta. If there are decks that can effectively swarm the board, he's going to be a fairly weak play. But he's really strong against decks that play one big finisher or don't play many creatures at all. So, there is room for Demanding Dragon to be very good.

The reason I bring him up as a good Magic card investment is that the buy-in is pretty low. In Standard, he feels more like a sideboard card against particular decks. Magic 2019 is full of cards built to hose certain decks and this is definitely one of those. There are definitely ways to abuse his enter the battlefield ability, such as blinking and reanimating. If those types of decks are viable in Standard, he'd definitely be a player. Also, the recent best Dragon in Standard, Glorybringer, won't be hanging around past October 2018.

We're not expecting a huge price tag on this guy, especially being only a rare. But, since there is so much interest in him, you should be keeping an eye on him. Attaching a Lava Axe to a creature that can at the very least force your opponent to sacrifice something or take a sizeable amount of damage to the face is awesome. Yeah, your opponent can choose not to sacrifice something, but losing a quarter of your starting life total is pretty sizeable.

This should be an interesting card even if it doesn't see a ton of Standard play, simply because it will help shape the Standard meta. But 5-mana Dragons typically do see play. He doesn't have haste, which hurts him a bit, but his abilities make up for that. This could be a $3-4 card very easily, especially with his demand profile early on. He's not going to make you rich, but he's one of those guys that seems like easy money.

The Innistrad Event Decks, Deathfed and Hold the Line, were pretty good in terms of value! Today on Retro Magic, let’s take a look at the blue/green deck, Deathfed. Just looking at the list, at the time, you knew this deck was well worth your $20.

Let’s take a look at the deck, how playable it actually is, and how its value has held up today.

There are pretty nice cards here. Obviously, 1 Birds of Paradise seems sort of thrown in, but it’s a welcome addition. Llanowar Elves is classic and shows up in a lot of Standard formats. Viridian Emissary helps you get the lands you need and was a very good common in those days. Merfolk Looter is good for a little draw power and throwing cards you don’t need in the graveyard. More cards in the graveyard really helps several cards in this deck. Two Acidic Slime are pretty basic, destroying lands or key artifacts to hinder your opponent’s progress.

The Innistrad inclusions here are Armored Skaab. Boneyard Wurm, and Splinterfright. Armored Skaab is a blue Zombie common who’s s a 1/4 that when it enters the battlefield, you put the top 4 cards of your deck into the graveyard. Boneyard Wurm is an interesting uncommon from Innistrad; the more creature cards you have in your graveyard, the stronger it becomes. Splinterfright is a rare creature card whose power and toughness is equal to the number of creature cards in your graveyard. This is just like Boneyard Wurm, except that at the beginning of each of your upkeep steps, you put the top 2 cards of your deck into the graveyard. So, Splinterfright can get bigger in a hurry.

Non-Creature Spells Breakdown

Ratchet Bomb is a nice little inclusion, as is Green Sun’s Zenith. The Zenith is going to search out Splinterfright, more often than not I think. Ratchet Bomb can help you clear out a bunch of monsters at once. But the most important rare for this deck is actually the two copies of Bonehoard. This equipment is a Living Weapon, and functions pretty much like a Boneyard Wurm. The difference is that you can essentially turn any of your creatures into a Boneyard Wurm after the Germ token that it comes with dies.

Gnaw to the Bomb just gains you tons of life based on how much you have in your graveyard. At one copy, this card probably isn’t too bad. While incidental lifegain is nice in Constructed, typically you don’t want to play a whole ton of cards that only gain you life, especially one that can be a fairly dead card. But as this is a slower deck, you probably want one copy just in case.

Forbidden Alchemy is a great common. You see the top four cards of your deck, add one to your hand, and ditch the other three into the graveyard. Spider Spawning is OK, but at 5 mana, it’s only going to be really good late game. It’s not a card that I’d play in Standard, although it’s a pretty fun card in general.

Mana Base and Sideboard Breakdown

Hinterland Harbor, being the blue/green enemy dual land in Innistrad, was actually the most expensive of the cards in this deck at the time. Otherwise, there’s just basic land in here. The 3 Swamps are included for the flashback costs of a couple cards in the deck.

Let’s peek into the sideboard:

3 Naturalize4 Flashfreeze4 Negate2 Gnaw to the Bone2 Mind Control

This is a pretty standard sideboard for an event deck, really. I don’t really like Gnaw to the Bones in the sideboard. It’s a card that’s only going to be good late-game, but I understand why it’s in here. It’s for aggro match-ups. This deck, sadly, is a bit slow. Still, one copy in the main-board is probably more than enough, especially with all of the other stuff in here. At the time, I felt these two sideboard copies were best replaced with Beast Within. I still feel that way.

I don’t think you need the Gnaws because you have a lot of other stuff to side in. You have three Naturalize to deal with problem artifacts - especially equipment - and enchantments. Flashfreeze counters red or green spells, so you can slow aggro down considerably. Negate is just good. The Mind Controls are cute because you can steal your opponent’s best creature and either equip your Bonehoard to it or clear the way for you to do lots of damage..

Deck Strategy

Overall, the deck relies on dumping a whole bunch of creature cards into your graveyard and beat people down with Boneyard Wurms. Splinterfright, and Bonehoards. It’s pretty basic, but it’s an interesting fun deck to pick up and play. More importantly, though, it has some very good cards that are played in many other decks - even in 2018. Back then, it was worth your money, although it’s not quite as good as the mono-white deck, Hold the Line.

Is the Deathfed Event Deck Worth Buying Today?

The short answer is: probably not. It would still be worth the $20 today for the cards, were you to get it for that price or less (which I assume is possible). But the deck typically is found for between $25-35, which isn’t really worth it.

In mid-2018, Green Suns’ Zenith and Birds of Paradise are $7 cards. Both see Commander play, and Birds sees Modern and tons of casual play. Those cards aren’t going down anytime soon. The only other semi-valuable card in the deck is Hinterland Harbor, which was reprinted, and is currently worth about $2.50. Ratchet Bomb is at best $1.50. It still sees occasional sideboard play.

The other rares in the deck aren’t worth much, but are playable. Splinterfright sees play in a lot of Sidisi, Brood Tyrant EDH decks. Bonehoard is a useful living weapon in many different EDH decks - but it’s a bulk rare due to being reprinted in four separate Commander products. Also, the commons and uncommons are all useful cards for your collection. So, if you found this deck lying around at a flea market for like $5 or $10 it would actually be a sweet deal.

I wouldn’t really buy this deck to play. To me, this deck was really just good for spare parts even at the time. It could be a fun deck to play at the time, but it wasn’t particularly competitive. Still, it’s not bad for what it is, a weaker Event Deck that still has some very playable cards in it.

Heliod's Pilgrimis a very interesting Human Cleric from the Magic 2015 Core Set. She costs 2W to cast for a 1/2, and when she enters the battlefield, search your library for an Aura card. Then, add it to your hand and shuffle your library. That's a great tutor effect on a common card! Unsurprisingly, she would find a home in some Standard decks and become a staple in Pauper Aura Hexproof decks, better known as Bogles.

The Pilgrim was a pretty strong competitive card right from its release. Two copies saw play in someModern Bogles decks like this one. There was aModern Chord Toolbox deck list that ran one Pilgrim, too In Standard, the Pilgrim worked her way into a variety of Boros decks and the occasional Jeskai Ascendancy list. But the deck that Heliod's Pilgrim was most happy in was Azorius Heroic.

After Heliod's Pilgrim's rotation from Standard, she fit right into a variety of Commander and Pauper decks. Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Uril, the Miststalker, Brago, King Eternal, Sigarda, Host of Herons, and Sram, Senior Artificer have called on her the most. She even found play in Ascended Lawmage Pauper EDH (PDH) decks!

But, Pauper is her most competitive format. One deck she's a staple in as a four-of is a deck often called "4-Color Value" which is an Enchantress version of Bogles that runs Aura Gnarlid rather than Slippery Bogle. It's a cool deck! There's alsoMono-White Heroic, a deck that's been on the rise in the format, that includes the Pilgrim, but often only as a one-of in the sideboard.

Of course, the most popular and powerful of the decks Heliod's Pilgrim sees play in is Aura Hexproof or "Bogles." These days, though, she's pretty much a one-of in the main deck like in this list.

In the first couple installments of the Magic Card Investor we looked at Nezahal, Primal Tide and Scrap Trawler. One looks like a top-end control finisher and the other is a staple in some Modern artifact combo decks.

This week, we look at a completely different kind of card, a card picking up steam in Pauper. It’s a common from Magic 2012 called Stonehorn Dignitary! It’s seeing play at four copies in 5-Color Urzatron Control and four copies between the main and sideboards of Sunscape Storm (I think that’s what the deck is called.) While it’s still a $0.25 card at the moment, just looking at people listing playsets for $4 or $5 on eBay tells me that people are expecting this card to move up quickly!

What makes the Dignitary so interesting from an investment perspective is that there are no reprints of it. Also, foil copies have been going bonkers. They’ve been listed as high as $13 on TCGPlayer, although the actual market seems to be between $4 and $7. Since Pauper is an Eternal format, players are quite willing to invest in foil copies for decks they plan to keep built. So, do we want to pick up a playset or two of Stonehorn Dignitary and hope for the best?

Low-Risk, Decent Reward

Because this is a common you can still find in bulk, Stonehorn Dignitary is extremely low risk. Heck, because it sees some Commander play in “blink” decks like Brago, King Eternal and Roon of the Hidden Realm, you can usually sell it to buylists for about a nickel. That’s the absolute worst case scenario, though. This card shouldn’t be going anywhere in Pauper.

The only thing that can hurt the Dignitary is if he gets reprinted. While this guy could fit into a lot of different scenarios, he hasn’t been reprinted yet. As it stands, there’s a good chance that Dignitary is $0.50 before long, and being that people are buying him four at a time for Pauper, $1 isn’t out of the question.

If you buy Stonehorn Dignitary at retail, you’re looking at likely doubling or quadrupling your money. If you already have some laying around, set them aside. This is one of the better commons to keep your eye on right now. If you can get foils on the low-end, that’s probably the better plan to make money quick. But if you’re just looking to grind out some value, keep a playset or two of these around.

A look back at previous Magic Card Investor episodes:

Nezahal, Primal Tide was $1.50 TCGPlayer mid on 6/20 and is $1.64 on 7/2. That’s a 9% gain in a little under two weeks. The market price is $1.74, so the market is still heating up. Getting to $3 in a hurry isn’t out of the question. This is still a buy.

Scrap Trawler was a little under $1 on 6/26 and by 7/2 it’s $1.15. That’s 15% in about a week! It’s slowed down, though. So I still really like this card, and I’d categorize it more as a hold. Still, you can’t turn down picking these up at such a low price.

If there’s a card you believe we should take a look at here on the Magic Card Investor, let us know in the comments!

The Brawl Commander is an interesting innovation on the massively popular Commander format of Magic: the Gathering. It allows you to play only Standard-legal cards with either a Legendary Creature or Planeswalker at the helm as a Commander. You also only play 60 cards, instead of the customary 100. One of those cards is your Commander, which sits in the Command Zone rather than in your deck. Also, you start with 30 life rather than 40. The rest of the rules of the format are the same as traditional Commander. It’s an awesome gateway format to traditional Commander with the sort of wide-open metagame that you’d expect from a singleton format.

One of my favorite Brawl decks that I’ve found in the Kaladesh to Dominaria era is Vona, Butcher of Magan. This particular list is sub $60 at time of this writing. It’s due to lose a few cards with the October 2018 rotation, such as Fatal Push and Gifted Aetherborn; so if you want to build this deck, you can leave out the Kaladesh, Aether Revolt, Amonkhet, and Hour of Devastation cards, which will make the list under $50 easily.

White/Black Vampires seemed a deck that was poised to be a nice budget strategy in Standard with the release of Ixalan. The deck got better with Rivals of Ixalan, too. But the tribe, good as its cards are in the current Standard cardpool, hasn’t made huge waves in the meta, although with a skilled pilot it can win some duels.

Vona, Butcher of Magan is a really cool Legendary Creature. Already a 4/4 vigilant Vampire Knight with lifelink, Vona also has a powerful tap ability. Pay 7 life and you can destroy a target nonland permanent. While it can only be activated on your turn, you can do so after she attacks. She hasn’t quite caught on in traditional Commander, but I think she will at some point.

This deck is a great starting place for anyone who wants to play Vampires in Commander. Actually, this deck list reads as a who’s who of Vampires in Standard. Indeed, Brawl decks are meant to “feel” a bit like you’re playing a Standard deck. But as singletons, many cards become objectively more powerful, as we’ll see as we delve into this pretty sweet deck list.

Creatures Breakdown

The list begins with three strong Vampire one-drops: Duskborne Marcher, Skymarcher Aspirant, and Vicious Conquistador. The Marcher pumps another attacking Vampire by just +1/+1, but sometimes, that’s all you need. Aspirant is actually playable in decks outside of Vampires, and once you have the City’s Blessing, she’s a 2/1 flyer for one, which is really good. Getting 10 permanents in Brawl is not hard to do. The Conquistador is an above average one drop with a ½ body and the ability to make each opponent lose 1 life. Naturally, the Conquistador is much more powerful in multiplayer games.

The deck has a slew of two-drop creatures: Adanto Vanguard, Bishop’s Soldier, Dusk Legion Zealot, Gifted Aetherborn, Legion Lieutenant, Martyr of Dusk, Oathsworn Vampire, and Queen’s Bay Soldier. The Vanguard is effectively a 3/1 when attacking and you can 4 life to make the Vanguard indestructible. Paying 4 life sounds like a high cost, but when you have a lot of lifelink like you do in this deck, using that ability to win a combat against a good creature is worth the price.

Bishop’s Soldier is a fairly vanilla 2/2 for 2 mana with Lifelink. But Lifelink is an important part of this deck, so you play him with that in mind. Dusk Legion Zealot is a Standard playable so good he got printed in Masters 25. He draws you a card when he enters, so losing that 1 life is no big deal at all. Gifted Aetherborn is just a solid two-mana 2 / 3 with deathtouch and lifelink. The post-October 2018 version of this deck will miss him but not that much.

Legion Lieutenant gives other vampires you control +1/+1. This is important because it makes the already slightly above-average Vampires in this deck very much above average creatures. This is a lord creature that you play when you’re about to have the beatdown to apply extra pressure.

Martyr of Dusk is a 2/1 for 2 mana that makes a 1/1 Vampire token with lifelink when he dies. Creatures that replace themselves are always pretty good, after all. Oathsworn Vampire comes into play tapped, which sounds bad until you see you can cast him from your graveyard if you gained life that turn. Not terrible. Queen’s Bay Soldier is just a vanilla 2/2 Vampire Soldier, but… that’s some sick artwork right there!

Some of the three-drop creatures in this deck are pretty awesome. Forerunner of the Legion is a recruiter for Vampires, putting a Vampire of your choice from your deck on top. But his usefulness doesn’t end there! Whenever another Vampire enters the battlefield under your control, target creature gets +1/+1.

Inspiring Cleric just gives you 4 life when she enters. But a 3/2 body for 3 mana is perfectly acceptable and the lifegain is always welcome.

Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle was one of my favorite creatures in Ixalan. Whenever one or more of your Vampires attack, you create a 1/1 Vampire token with lifelink. It’s too bad you only get one token per combat, but he’s a nice little value engine.

Sadistic Skymarcher is a 3-mana flyer 2/2 with lifelink, which is pretty sweet, but you have to reveal a Vampire card from your hand or pay an extra colorless mana when he enters. Not terrible, and certainly playable. Skymarch Bloodletter is a bit better, a 2/2 flyer for 3 that drains an opponent for 1 life.

Voracious Vampire is the last 3-drop Vampire in the deck, and she’s a 2/2 with menace. When she enters, target Vampire you control gains +1/+1 and menace until end of turn. Forcing your opponent to block with two creatures is pretty good, and in certain circumstances, this gal facilitates 2-for-1 or even 3-for-1 combats.

Bishop of Binding is pretty terrible in regular Standard, BUT in Brawl that’s a whole different story. Only a 1/1 for 3W, his effectiveness depends on the creature that you exile with his enter the battlefield ability. He’s quite fragile, but the power and toughness boost he creates can be given to any Vampire you control, not just him. So, in the context of this deck, he’s both removal and a repeatable pump spell. That’s not bad at all.

Paladin of the Bloodstained is a pretty underwhelming 4-mana Knight that brings a 1/1 vampire token with lifelink when he enters. But what else can you ask from a common? Two bodies out of one card is pretty much always good, and this is pretty average. Likewise, Sanguine Glorifier is a 3/3 that gives a target Vampire a +1/+1 counter when she enters. Not great, but pretty good to throw on Vona.

The best non-Vona creature in the deck is easily Sanctum Seeker. He’s essentially Hellrider for Vampires. Whenever a Vampire attacks, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. Note that it’s for each Vampire that attacks, unlike with Mavren Fein. He’s already good enough in 1v1 Magic. But, in multiplayer, this guy is just absolutely busted and can break the game wide open in your favor. This guy is one of your win conditions.

The last creature in the deck is Champion of Dusk. He’s really straightforward: he enters and you lose X life and draw X cards where X is the number of Vampires you control. Since you’re gaining a lot of life, you don’t care about the lifeloss. This guy helps you get back in the game when you’ve run out of gas. Also, he’s a 4/4, so he works for you on the field, too.

Spells Breakdown

Unsurprisingly, this is a creature-heavy deck, since the Vampire tribe relies so much on its creatures. That’s why you play some underwhelming stuff. So there aren’t many non-creature spells. Duress is pretty basic hand control, but it’s one of the best control spells in the game, so it’s worth including. Fatal Push might be one of the best removal spells ever printed, and it’s gone with October 2018 Standard rotation. Still, it’s worth picking one up just to have, since it’s going to see play forever.

Cast Down destroys a nonlegendary creature. It’s a Dominaria card that’s going to be a Brawl staple for quite some time. Doomfall is a sweet card that’s pretty much a split card since you can choose one of two options. Either your opponent exiles a creature they control or you exile a nonland card from his or her hand. Either option is great for 3 mana, but sadly, it leaves Brawl with Hour of Devastation in 10/18.

The other two noncreature spells are token generators: Queen’s Commission makes two 1/1 vampires with lifelink for 3 mana and Call to the Feast creates three 1/1’s with lifelink for four. Both are great in this deck.

Artifacts and Enchantments

The two artifacts in this deck are extremely strong. Vanquisher’s Banner is a Tribal staple that many traditional Commander players still haven’t adopted, strangely enough. Not only does the Banner pump creatures of the chosen type by +1/+1, but also draws you a card each time you cast a creature of that type. It’s really a key card in this deck.

The Immortal Sun is just a Brawl staple all around, as long as you’re not playing any Planeswalkers. It’s a pretty ridiculous card. Spells you cast cost 1 less to cast, you draw an additional card each draw step, AND creatures you control gain +1/+1. Shutting down planeswalkers’ loyalty abilities is a plus in this deck.

Legion’s Landing is a one-mana Enchantment that brings a 1/1 Vampire token with it. When you attack with three or more creatures, you transform it into a Vampire-token creating machine. It can even tap for White mana. Radiant Destiny is another awesome tribal card, not only giving your Vampires (or any creature type you choose) +1/+1 but it can give you the city’s blessing once you have 10 permanents. With all the little Vampires you have in this deck, that’s pretty easy to do. Once you have the city’s blessing, all of your Vampires gain vigilance. This deck becomes really hard to beat at that point!

Squire’s Devotion is one of the more odd choices in this deck, in my opinion. It’s a 3 mana Enchantment that gives the enchanted creature +1/+1 and lifelink. It also brings a 1/1 Vampire token with lifelink with it. Not a bad card, and it really just feels like another token generator that you might stick on your Sanctum Seeker or Champion of Dusk.

Cast Out and Ixalan’s Binding are standard removal staples that are also Brawl staples. Not much to say about them except that Cast Out won’t be in Brawl much longer.

Not much to say about the mana base except that Concealed Courtyard, Ifnir Deadlands, and Shefet Dunes are all saying goodbye in October ‘18. Save yourself about $6 there, unless you need them for other formats. Memorial to Folly is a nice way to get back a creature card from your grave, like Sanctum Seeker or Champion of Dusk.

Deck Strategy

While many of the cards in this deck wouldn’t ever see Standard or traditional Commander play, in Brawl, they all work synergistically. Honestly, there aren’t any below-average cards in the deck besides maybe the vanilla creatures. But even they are important to this deck’s strategy. You just need to fill the board with Vampires and let your Sanctum Seeker go to work. Vona helps you keep the board clear of problems while leading the charge.

Really, the deck wins on pure Tribal synergy. The tribal boost cards really are what make this deck so deadly. You’re winning by swarming the board with creatures that suddenly become above-average to well above-average with just a couple of support cards. Many of your creatures come with a token attached, so you’re getting card advantage all of the time. Swarm decks have always been one of my favorite strategies and this deck is one that I’d play.

Magic 2019 gives the deck Vampire Sovereign. While a 5-mana 3 / 4 flyer isn’t all that great, the drain ability for 3 life is pretty decent, even if it only affects one opponent. It’s going to replace Gifted Aetherborn in the deck, which does mess the mana curve up only a little. But Magic 2019 also gives the deck Vampire Neonate, a one-drop that can tap to drain all opponents for 1 life for only 2 colorless mana. The Queen’s Bay Soldier can go to make room for it.

This is a great, very competitive deck in the KLD-DOM Brawl meta. M19 is definitely going to shake things up with the Elder Dragons, but this deck is tribal synergy at its finest.

One deck that will leave Standard at the October 2018 Standard rotation is actually what I’d consider a budget deck. At only about $140, White-Blue God-Pharaoh’s Gift is a deck that has placed highly at major tournaments, including 4th place at Grand Prix Pittsburgh. This is the list piloted by Jack Kiefer on June 24, 2018.

The strategy to this deck is actually pretty straightforward, although it requires careful piloting. The deck is built around God-Pharaoh’s Gift, a powerful seven-mana artifact. This deck draws a lot of cards, at the cost of discarding a lot. But that’s fine. First of all, you want to discard your Gifts to bring them back with Refurbish. Then, a lot of creatures in this deck have Eternalize, which means you can bring them back as 4/4 Zombies. God-Pharaoh’s Gift will allow you to Eternalize a creature for free at the beginning of each combat, too. They gain haste, as well. Pretty sweet stuff.

Creatures Breakdown

Minister of Inquiries is a 1 / 2 one-drop that makes energy. But we don’t care so much about the energy, except what the energy allows us to do: mill cards from our deck. We want to get our bigger creatures in the yard so we can Eternalize them or bring them back as Zombie tokens with the pseudo-Eternalize of God-Pharaoh’s Gift. The fact we can bring Minister back as a 4/4 later is actually pretty cool, too.

Champion of Wits is already a decent creature by drawing you 2 cards for 3 mana and giving you a 2/1 body, although you then have to discard 2 cards. His Eternalize cost is 7 mana, but we’re rarely going to be paying that in this deck. He’s going to draw you 4 cards more often than not. You’ll have to discard 2, then, too, but it just keeps the deck moving.

There are two mainboard and two sideboard Sunscourge Champion. He gains you life, which is nice. Also, he’s only four mana to Eternalize, gaining you 4 life when he comes back as a Zombie token. This is a guy you’ll actually Eternalize on purpose sometimes, too. The two sideboard copies come in against aggro decks, I’d say. Great creature!

The last creatures in the mainboard are a playset (four copies) of Angel of Invention. This card is good enough to hard-cast, and even though 5 mana looks bad on a 2/1, she has Fabricate 2. Making two 1/1 flying tokens is pretty sweet. You can use the Fabricate to give her 2 +1/+1 counters, but that’s not really what you want to do most of the time. She also gives other creatures you control +1/+1, so those tokens are effectively 2/2. With Gift, though, this becomes a 4/4 token that still has Fabricate. That’s very, very powerful, and really is why Angel of Invention is in the deck.

Spells Breakdown

Chart a Course is great at drawing cards, and if you’ve attacked with a creature that turn, you don’t have to discard a card. But most of the time, you want to! Strategic Planning lets you dig through three cards, choose one, and throw the other two in the yard. The one spell that really makes the deck is Refurbish: 4 mana to bring back an artifact card from the graveyard. It’s pretty darn good. Then, there are two copies of Fumigate to clear the board and gain you some life in the process! God-Pharaoh’s Gift we’ve already gone into, and it’s the heart of the deck.

Search of Azcanta is a pretty cool Legendary Enchantment. Each turn, you get to look at the top card of your deck. Then, you can choose to throw it in your graveyard. In this deck, this is pretty much good as drawing a card in this deck. Once you have seven cards in your graveyard, it flips into Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. This land taps for Blue mana and also has a neat ability to let you dig through four cards to find a nonland, noncreature card to add to your hand. The other three cards go to the bottom of your library. This helps you keep your engine going. It’s a sweet card.

Lastly, there are two copies of Cast Out. This 4-mana enchantment helps you deal with a problem nonland permanent until it leaves the battlefield. Or, you can cycle it for a single White mana. It also has Flash, which is neat.

The mana base is pretty straightforward. We’ll look at Hostile Desert and Ipnu Rivulet, however, because they’re pretty important in this deck. Hostile Desert is a cool little manland. For only 2 mana, you exile a land card from your graveyard and the Desert becomes a 3 / 4 Elemental creature until end of turn.

Ipnu Rivulet is a Desert that can sacrifice itself or another Desert to put the top four lands of target player’s library into the graveyard. You’ll usually use this on yourself, of course.

Sideboard Breakdown

For the control matchup, there are two copies of Jace’s Defeat and three copies of Negate, so you can land your key spells. There’s also a third copy of Search for Azcanta to speed the deck up against aggro. Disallow is a nice catch-all counterspell that also stops activated or triggered abilities.

Thopter Arrest is another removal spell that deals with artifacts or creatures. It’s actually pretty good in a mirror match to remove an opposing Gift from play. Ixalan’s Binding serves a similar purpose, but it also keeps your opponent from playing other spells with that name. Settle the Wreckage absolutely wrecks aggro decks by removing all of their attacking creatures from play. The downside, putting a bunch of basic lands into play, really isn’t all that bad.

Three copies of Angel of Sanctions are also good for catching up with quicker decks. They also have nice synergy with Gift, as not only do they have an ability similar to Eternalize in Embalm, but they’re a good target, as well. Being able to exile something when they enter is huge, too. As we already mentioned, the extra two Champions help keep your life total up against quicker decks.

My Impressions of White/Blue Gifts

I love this deck! Yeah, Mono-Red Aggro is pretty darn fast, but this deck has the tools to keep up and come back. It’s pretty overpowering when it really gets going. If you can get two or more Gifts in play, this deck really can start hammering away, especially with the Angels and Thopter tokens. Sure, this deck can run out of gas, but it’s usually going to do enough damage before it does. This is an extremely competitive deck.

Sadly, I think this deck is way, way too slow for Modern. Plus, there’s too much graveyard hate in Modern and other Eternal formats for this deck to be reliable. That’s not to say that graveyard-based decks don’t work - they do - but this strategy, while a lot of fun, just isn’t going to cut it in that format. I hope I’m proven wrong, because I love this deck. It could still win out of nowhere, I suppose.

This will probably be one of those artifacts of past Standard formats, but it’s a strategy that’s so much fun to watch in action and even more fun to play.

Scrap Trawleris a neat little rare from Aether Revolt. While Aether Revolt rotates out of Standard in October 2018, this isn’t a card that’s going to stop seeing play. Under a dollar for most of its Standard life, its inclusion in many Modern Krark-Clan Ironworks decks as a four-of has pushed it close to $1. Let’s take a look at this scrappy three-mana artifact creature.

His ability is actually awesome:

WheneverScrap Trawleror another artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return to your hand target artifact card in your graveyard with lesser converted mana cost.

Just on his own,Scrap Trawlercan get back a two-mana, one-mana, or zero-mana artifact. But the cool thing about the Trawler is that if you have any other artifact you control go to the graveyard, you can get back an artifact to your hand with a lesser converted mana cost than that particular artifact. To be honest, there are a lot more decks that could play this ability, and just haven’t. Or they just haven’t been competitive enough to break into the Modern scene. There’s even the rogue Legacy deck that plays him, and why not? He gets back your Black Lotus in Vintage, too…

For this card to be pushing a $1.50 market price when its still been a $1 or less card just shows me how much people are stocking up on playsets of this guy. But Krark-Clan Ironworks decks, while good and certainly competitive, aren’t actually the reason why this card is such a good investment. The real demand for this card is actually from Commander.

Besides three big artifact Commanders - Breya, Etherium Shaper, Daretti, Scrap Savant, and Glissa, the Traitor - there are plenty of other decks that like Scrap Trawler. Bosh, Iron Golem has been making a comeback lately and he loves this card. Even Depala, Pilot Exemplar decks can play it, to recycle Vehicles! There’s a lot to like about this guy.

As a card that’s clearly rotation-proof, Scrap Trawler is a card you should pick up early and often! Really meant to be a part of Vehicle decks, that didn’t really happen outside of the occasional list. So, you can be pretty confident that this is going to be a sweet long-term investment. What’s his ceiling going to be? If he doesn’t get reprinted, which he may, who knows!

If you have any Magic card that you think would be a great investment, let us know in the comments below. We’ll take a look at it, and if it’s worthy of an episode of the Magic Card Investor, we’ll give you a shoutout!

A Magic 2019 Core Set Elder Dragon may be to blame!

If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of the next big thing in Magic: the Gathering, check the best-seller lists on various websites. You especially want to pay attention to TCGPlayer and Amazon, although Troll and Toad is another good one to check. Sometimes, you'll see a card that you simply don't understand why it's among the top 10 or even top 5 cards. But there's always a reason.

Tower Defenseis a decent uncommon from Gatecrash that you can play at instant speed. It gives creatures you control +0/+5 and reach until end of turn. People have played this card before, especially in Defender decks, which are a lot of fun with Assault Formation.

But what caused this little pump spell to become a #4 best-seller on TCGPlayer in late June 2018? Enter one of the coolest Legendary Creatures in Magic 2019, Arcades, the Strategist!

The reimagining of the Elder Dragons from Magic the Gathering's Legends set is pretty freaking awesome. Each of them has some sweet abilities, but Arcades, the Strategist has created a pretty sweet new Commander (EDH) deck all on his own. While Bant Defenders is an archetype that's existed for a long time, Arcades 2.0 makes that deck suddenly quite good.

Before now, Doran, the Siege Tower was the best Defender deck commander. But he's Green, White, and Black, which leaves out a lot of really sweet Defenders, such as Wall of Denial, for example. Arcades allows you to play all of those Blue Defenders, and then some!

A 4-mana 3/5 with Flying and Vigilance, this Elder Dragon draws you a card whenever a creature with defender enters the battlefield under your control. Already, this deck gains some serious card advantage. Then, there's the big effect on this card, something we've only seen before on Doran, and enchantments like Assault Formation and Rolling Stones.

"Each creature you control with defender assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power and can attack as though it didn't have defender."

There are lots of high toughness creatures in Magic with Defender. This kind of deck has been semi-competitive in the past. But Arcades, the Strategist gives you an amazing advantage by giving you really easy card draw.

So where does Tower Defense as a 2-mana instant pump spell fit in? That's because Tower Defense essentially is a +5/+5 pump spell for your team. The reach can be good sometimes, too, if you're using it defensively. But in an Arcades, the Strategist deck, you're using this combat trick more often than not on offense. But the ability to use the reach to block flyers is pretty sweet, and could swing a game in your favor.

Long story short, Tower Defense is only the first of a number of cards that should see a big boost from Arcades, the Strategist being printed. Tree of Redemption from Masters 25 is going to become quite relevant in that deck, as well as mana dorks like Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement. Countless Walls and Treefolk are going to be at home in this deck, too. Plus, having access to Blue means access to crazy good spells like Cyclonic Rift, extra turn cards, and counter-magic.

While people are pretty excited that Arcades, the Strategist makes for an awesome budget Commander deck, this guy has a chance to turn Bant Defenders into an extremely competitive strategy. As a Bant lover myself, I love this guy.

When you think of the most popular Magic the Gathering cards of all-time, Duress may not be one of the first ones that come to mind. But when you’re thinking of Black control staples, Duress is one of the best spells ever printed. This common one-mana sorcery has been with us since Urza’s Saga, and it’s not leaving anytime soon.

Duress in Standard

Every time that Duress is in the Standard format, it sees play. The last time it’s been printed in Standard was in the Ixalan set. It’s seen play in a variety of decks, mostly out of the sideboard, such as in this Red/Black Midrange deck.

In Modern, Thoughtseize is widely considered the superior play over Duress. Yes, technically, Thoughtseize is a better card, as it allows you to discard creatures, as well. But there’s also the cost of paying 2 life. While that’s not really a huge deal in Modern, it is a much bigger deal in Legacy, a format where Duress actually sees play over Thoughtseize.

Duress is better in Legacy since you’re more than happy to discard key instant, sorceries, or artifacts. Creatures aren’t quite as important in the format, as they are in Modern. Pretty much any Legacy deck has something worth taking with Duress, and you don’t even have to pay a life point fee, which is very important in the skill-intensive Legacy format.

This Ad Nauseam Tendrils Legacy list even has three copies of Duress in the mainboard.

You’ll also find Duress in the 75 cards of many Reanimator and Turbo Depths lists, as well.

Duress in Pauper

Being a common, it’s no surprise that Duress sees play in the all-common format. Blue/Black Control lists tend to play a couple copies of Duress in the sideboard. Mono-Black Control decks, like the one below, typically play three sideboard copies.

Duress has seen printing in over a dozen sets, including several promos and pre-constructed deck printings.

Urza’s Saga

7th Edition

Magic 2010 Core Set

Magic 2011 Core Set

Magic 2013 Core Set

Magic 2014 Core Set

Duel Decks: Divine vs. Demonic

Duel Decks: Anthology

Premium Foil Deck: Graveborn

Modern Event Deck

Arena Promo

Friday Night Magic Promo

IDW Comics Promo

Dragons of Tarkir

Eternal Masters

Iconic Masters

Ixalan

Even with so many printings, there are a few printings that are valuable. The IDW Comics promo and Arena promo are worth north of $30. The 7th Edition foil is highly sought after and has commanded over $30 and as high as $70! The Urza’s Saga original common printing is the most valuable at around $0.75. The second most valuable set foil printing is from Dragons of Tarkir, with an artwork that many players prefer, around $2.

You can never go wrong collecting copies of Duress. They are wanted in playsets all of the time and should be a part of every player’s collection, no matter which printing they are from. But if you’re looking to invest in this valuable common, the original Urza’s Saga common and the Dragons of Tarkir foil are a good place to start, as these versions seem to have the best market.

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